


Every time a bell rings, an agent gets his wings

by diadema



Series: Excerpts (From The Vault) [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Alternate Universe - It's a Wonderful Life Fusion, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Guardian Angels, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-26
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-11 01:54:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28327122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadema/pseuds/diadema
Summary: When all hope seems lost, Illya finds himself in the presence of an unlikely visitor: one who shows him what life would be like if he had never been born.
Relationships: Illya Kuryakin & Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller
Series: Excerpts (From The Vault) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1100787
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	Every time a bell rings, an agent gets his wings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [VivalaGallya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivalaGallya/gifts).



> Merry Christmas, VivalaGallya! <3
> 
> You've been on my "Surprise with a Gift Fic" list for ages now, and I'm so happy to finally be able to thank you properly for your generous spirit, endless support, and the light you bring to this fandom. I originally started this in 2018, but it's only now gotten to a point where I could publish it. A big thank you to Somedeepmystery and SydneyMo for their help on that front. <3
> 
> I hope you enjoy the story!

“Beautiful night for a swim, don’t you think?” he asks, stepping out from the shadows. His blue eyes flick between Illya’s face and the moonlit waters below. “At least that’s what I _hope_ you’re up to this fine Christmas Eve.”

Illya grits his teeth in response, gaze trained on his trembling hands, shaking not from the December cold, but something far more chilling. _Desperation._

_Don’t make this harder than it has to be,_ he wants to beg. But he doesn’t. Instead, Illya manages to choke out a half-truth. A warning. “You shouldn’t be here, Cowboy.”

“On the contrary. I am _exactly_ where I need to be. And, please, call me Napoleon.”

Illya’s head snaps up. He eyes the American suspiciously, shrouded as he is in light fog and the yellowed haze of the streetlights. “Nobody calls you Napoleon.”

“Only my mother and the Big Man himself,” he responds with a tight attempt at a grin. “But I’m not who or _what_ you think I am.”

Illya all but rolls his eyes, as he says flatly, “Really.”

“Napoleon” makes a half-bow. “God help you, Illya, but _I_ am your guardian angel.”

Illya exhales sharply, not least for the rare use of his given name. He’s in no mood for any of the Cowboy's antics, but if this is to be the last time he ever speaks to his friend, he’ll at least _try_ to indulge him. “Evidently not a very good one.”

“You wound me,” the American drawls, hand on his chest. “The thing about humans, though, is that they’ve all got this wonderful, little gift called ‘free will’. You have heard of it, haven’t you?”

Napoleon steps further out into the light, takes a seat beside Illya, legs dangling over the edge of the bridge. “And, as to your point about me not doing my job… I _have_ been looking out for you. Long before people like ‘Napoleon Solo’ and ‘Gabriella Teller’ ever came into your life.” 

Illya flinches visibly at the sound of her name. “Does she… does she know you’re here?”

A slight frown mars the man’s fine features. “Gaby? No. She and ‘Cowboy’, as you call him, are completely and blissfully in the dark.” He arches a calculated eyebrow. “I’m certain you already saw to that.”

Illya’s mouth has gone completely dry. He nods endlessly, flooded with relief and a preemptive regret for the pain he will cause them. Waverly too.

“I can tell you don’t believe me,” Napoleon says. “About the angel bit, I mean.”

“Why should I? When you look—”

“More sin than saint?” Napoleon chuckles, the trademark smirk softer than Illya remembers. He shrugs. “It was something new, something familiar. And some _one_ that you would actually listen to.”

Illya huffs. “You’d have better luck if you looked like Gaby,” he mutters.

The fog rolls in suddenly, and when it clears, the mechanic is the one sitting beside him. She regards him with calm, dark eyes. But where the American’s had at least tried for humor, Gaby’s are infinitely, unfathomably _sad._

Illya swears loudly, scrambling away from this strange magic. His pulse is roaring in his ears, breath torn from his lungs in a ragged gasp. “Ga-by,” he pleads. His voice sounds as broken as he feels.

“Illya.” And there is that voice, that sharp, soothing voice that keeps him balanced on the razor’s edge. She reaches out to him, small hand coming to rest on his forearm, and he stills. An unearthly calm overtakes him.

“Gaby” tilts her head, staring up at him. “Do you _truly_ want to look into the eyes of the woman you love, the woman who loves _you_ and—”

“No,” he whispers, shaking his head over and over again. _“No.”_

“I didn’t think so.” The voice is the American’s once more, though without the faintest trace of arrogance. Sympathy, maybe. Understanding.

Illya sits up a little taller and turns to the man—the _angel—_ beside him. “What do you want from me?”

“I ask only for your indulgence.” The smirk is back, but gentler, less goading than the real Cowboy’s. “You, Illya Kuryakin, are at a crossroads. Whichever path you choose, tonight is an ending. It _could_ be a beginning.”

Illya scoffs. _You don’t understand._

“Actually, I do.”

Illya’s jaw clamps down in irritation. Napoleon can read minds now? A telepathic American is the _last_ thing he needs at the moment.

“You think this is the only way,” the man says coolly. “That you are doing the right thing, the _honorable_ thing. In fact, _you_ think it would have been better if you’d never been born at all.”

Illya lets his eyes drift out over the water. He’s not going to deny it. “You’re here to prove me wrong?”

Napoleon grins at him. “As a matter of fact,” he says, “I am.” He rises to his feet and offers Illya his hand. “The only question is… where would you like to start?”

* * *

Where once they were on a bridge, the unlikely pair now find themselves at the Spanish Steps in Rome, a scene straight out of the most important mission of his life. Illya’s eyes dart as he tries to take it all in, while Napoleon looks perfectly at ease.

“What are we waiting for?” he asks, when a couple of minutes had passed.

_“That,”_ Napoleon responds.

As if on cue, he sees Gaby approaching in the matronly blue ensemble that the American had picked out for her. If that isn’t confusing enough, she is on the arm of another man.

Illya starts. “How—”

“It’s not a memory,” the angel confirms.

Illya all but growls at him. “Then _what?_ ”

“Exactly what you wanted: a world in which you’d never been born.”

Much like the real Cowboy, this Napoleon is similarly impervious to all of Illya’s glares. He is about to make a retort when he notices something strange about the man with Gaby.

“I can’t see his face.”

A shrug from his companion. “Does it matter? It could have been any of a dozen agents. The outcome still would have been the same.”

That was a relief, at least. World peace would have been secured, the impossible achieved regardless of his part in it. His stomach drops at the realization, though he tries not to show it. “That’s... good.”

“I don’t think you understand.” Off Illya’s look, the angel continues. “There was only _one_ way this would have ended without you: a double-cross, a dead body, and a burned cover.”

Just then, Solo pulls up in his Vespa. Illya watches numbly as the three operatives confer. He turns to the angel, an unspoken question on his lips.

_What will become of them?_

“Think about it,” Napoleon says, “There _is_ no UNCLE.”

A sudden fear grips him. “The disk. What about the disk?”

The scene changes: the wreckage of two cars. A fight in the rain. And a powder-blue disk being tucked into the American’s pocket.

Napoleon ducks his head, only slightly embarrassed. “I’m not going to pretend to be better than I am.”

“But you destroyed it—”

“—because you were there to challenge me, to change the way I think of ‘us’ and ‘them’. In this world? I had a mission to complete, and _that_ was my bargaining chip. Not just for me either.”

That catches him off-guard. “Gaby?”

He nods. “Her cover was blown on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Only so much that Waverly could do to protect her after that. I offered her a fresh start in the States, and she accepted.”

Illya’s nostrils flare, index finger jabbing at the ground to punctuate every word. “Why would she do that?”

“They were good to her father, so I figured they’d be willing to be good to her too.”

“The same way that they were ‘good’ to you?”

Napoleon looks at him, almost pleadingly. “I didn’t know what it would cost us. I tried to buy my freedom, buy _her_ freedom.”

“What happened,” he grounds out.

“Gaby got a new life. A _real_ one.”

“And you?”

“More like a life sentence,” he says darkly. “When they gave me the medal, I knew the leash was never coming off.”

Napoleon holds his gaze calmly, sadly, and Illya knows that he’s holding something back. The angel is kind enough not to make him ask.

“The US gets the upper-hand in the Cold War until word gets out about the daughter of a Nazi scientist… a covert, foreign operative working on our shores.”

“No."

“Once the press got wind of it, it was over.” Napoleon shakes his head. “The country was in mourning after Kennedy, and Gaby… well, the femme fatale always makes for a good story. I do what I can for her, but,” he shrugs, “why put her behind bars when you can put her behind a Wall?”

_“No.”_

“Would you rather she be tried as a war criminal? Not just for what they claim she did, but for what her _father_ did as well? At least in Germany, she has contacts. Friends, allies.”

“Not where they will take her.”

There is a pained look in Napoleon’s eyes, but he doesn’t deny it. “I go back with her myself, _promise_ that it won’t be the last time she sees me. I make an off-the-record trip to London on the way back, send word to Waverly.”

Illya’s heart is hammering out of his chest. He doesn’t even try to hide the tremor in his voice, the plaintive note. “What happens to her?”

“I never get to find out,” Napoleon says. “They find my body in the harbor three days later.”

And, just as abruptly, the scene changes once more.

* * *

They are in London now, standing in the middle of an unfamiliar office. Rain streaks down the windows, mingling with the crackling and hissing of a fire dying in the grate. Waverly is distinctly disheveled, eyes bloodshot and hair in uncharacteristic disarray.

On the desk are boxes, packed with little regard for their contents. Far more troubling, however, are the empty bottles rolling at the British man’s feet.

It makes Illya’s heart sink. 

“He blames himself,” Napoleon says. “For Gaby. For Rome. For all of it. His pet project failed, _he_ failed his pet _agent._ It was a relapse waiting to happen.”

Illya looks on forlornly at this shell of a once-great man. 

“Do you need to know anymore?” the American asks softly. “About Oleg’s unchecked rise in power? What happens to your _mother_ with no husband or son left to protect her?”

Illya hangs his head. Even he has his limits. “Please,” he whispers. “No more.

Napoleon nods, and once more, they are back on the bridge.

* * *

Illya is trembling violently. All of the pent-up emotions—the fear, the worry, the crushing weight of the circumstances that have landed him here—boil over into anger.

“Is that why you’ve shown me these things? To _guilt_ me?”

Napoleon regards him calmly. “You’ve had more than enough of that for one lifetime, don’t you think?”

The angel takes a step towards him. “Shame is powerful, Illya, but it’s not worth living for.” He chuckles humorlessly. “It’s not worth _dying_ for either.”

Illya can’t meet Napoleon’s eyes, so he stares back out over the water, letting the chilly air cool his too-warm skin. “Then what is?”

“Love, for one thing. A belief in your own self-worth.” He pauses, deliberate in his next words. “You deserve better than this, you know.”

He can hear the smile in Napoleon’s voice, the certainty in his tone. “And if you don’t realize it now, then trust me when I say that there are those who will never let you forget it.”

_“Illya?”_ a woman’s voice calls, and his jaw drops. _No, no, no. She shouldn’t be—_

“Peril, is that you?”

Illya does a double-take but confirms that, yes, that is Solo and Gaby approaching him. An odd mix of dread and joy bubbles up inside him at the sight of them. He reads the concern, the confusion on their faces, but also the relief.

“It’s a Christmas miracle,” the American deadpans. “What were you doing out here all by yourself?”

_By himself?_ Illya's head swivels as he strains for any glimpse of the angel.

"I hope you weren't planning on going for a swim," Solo adds.

Gaby interjects before Illya can even open his mouth. She stands before him, eyes blazing as she scolds him in a colorful mix of languages. But for all of the bite to her words, Illya can only feel the love behind them. Almost without thinking, he enfolds her into a hug, crushing her tightly to his chest. She stills, before softening against him.

Perhaps that is the moment he understands just _what_ the angel had meant. Here they are, the two people he cares for most in this world, combing the city in the dead of night to find him. And, for all that he has put them through, they somehow have still decided he is worth the trouble.

_“Alles gut?”_ she whispers.

_“Ja. Alles gut,”_ he murmurs, pressing a kiss into the crown of her hair. “Just came to watch the sunrise.”

He tucks Gaby into his side, and just for the hell of it, drapes an arm around Cowboy’s shoulders as well. 

The three turn as one to survey the starlit waters, the even blanket of darkness before them. A long moment passes before Solo sighs. “I hate to break it to you, Peril, but the sun’s not rising for a couple of hours.”

Illya shakes his head, smiling, gaze catching on a star that suddenly shines brighter than all the rest.

“Shh, Cowboy. It will come,” he says. And for the first time in a long time, he believes it. “It will come.”

**Author's Note:**

> I know it's been a long time since I've been active on AO3, so thank you to everyone still joining me around my little campfire to share in these stories with me. Your comments are always welcome and cherished. I've missed you all and hope you have a happy holiday season and a safe and beautiful 2021. <3


End file.
